Moline

Iowa City

The Fitness Xpress Story

The Fitness Xpress story began in 1990, the day Pete Crampton – nearly 350 pounds and using a cane – walked into a gym. He was desperate. After a terrible car accident, he was in need of a hip replacement, but his doctor refused to operate until Pete lost some weight. Overwhelmed but determined, he took the first tentative steps toward changing his life. That was the day he met David Bedwell, the man who would become not only his best friend and business partner, but his salvation.

David had gotten into the fitness industry as a young man for the humblest of reasons: he enjoyed working out but couldn’t afford a membership to a health club. “I thought if I got a job at a gym, I could work out for free,” he says. But as it turns out, he had a natural aptitude for changing lives – and in the process, David got much more than a free gym membership. He made friends like Pete.

Under David’s guidance, Pete started simply. With perseverance and encouragement, he lost enough weight to have the much-needed hip surgery. But he didn’t stop there. Inspired, Pete and David, along with Pete’s brother John, a QC businessman with decades of experience, decided to open their own health club. They worked long hours with limited resources, pouring their hearts and souls into the project. And in 2004, the very first branch of Fitness Xpress opened in Davenport.

Their dedication paid off. Fitness Xpress prospered, and Pete and David were privileged to be a part of members’ life changes each day. They made sure that Fitness Xpress was a welcoming environment, a place where no one ever felt intimidated, where everyone was greeted with a smile and a hello, where inspiration and motivation thrived. Its selection of state-of-the-art exercise equipment was accessible to members twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year.

By 2011, it was time for Fitness Xpress to grow in a new direction. At first glance, a dilapidated former theater in Moline may not have seemed like the best place for a gym to lay down new roots. But with vision, faith, and over $1 million in renovations and new equipment, Fitness Xpress Moline was born. Like its sister branches, it offered its members many perks, but also a brand new feature: group fitness. Pete and David realized that the social aspect of exercise was of vital importance – after all, they had both benefited from it themselves. Incorporating that aspect into Fitness Xpress infused a fresh sense of vitality, opening up a whole new world of fun opportunities to get fit.

It’s been a whirlwind of change, but for Pete and David, it has also been the realization of a dream. On any given day, you can find them both doing what they enjoy the most: working with the members and behind the scenes, just as they have since Fitness Xpress first opened its doors nearly a decade ago. Though things have evolved over the years, their commitment to their members and involvement in the Quad Cities remains steadfast.

“We’re not a club that’s just worried about a spreadsheet; we’re really in this community,” says Pete. “Our business is here. Our lives are here.”

Adds David, “We genuinely enjoy what we do. There’s never a day that goes by when I regret having to get up and go to work.”

The Fitness Xpress Mission

To motivate our community towards a healthy lifestyle;
To empower our members with ideas and techniques that produce results;
To inspire our fitness family to discover the meaningful parts of life
through the happiness of health.
We change lives!